Majority of Germans sceptical about saving euro: poll

(FRANKFURT) - The majority of Germans believe the country's Constitutional Court should block two key anti-crisis tools next week, according to the results of an opinion poll released Friday.

In a survey carried out by YouGov for the German news agency DPA, 54 percent of Germans said that the Court should order a legal review of parliament's recent approval of the eurozone's ESM bailout fund and the EU fiscal pact.

Only 25 percent of those polled thought the court should reject temporary injunctions that would prevent President Joachim Gauck from signing the crisis-fighting tools into law.

The Court is to issue a ruling next Wednesday on whether Gauck can complete the ratification process for the European Stability Mechanism (EMS) and the European fiscal pact, both of which received a two-thirds majority in parliament at the end of June.

The far-left Die Linke party, a citizens' initiative group called "More Democracy" and a well-known eurosceptic from Chancellor Angela Merkel's CSU Bavarian sister party, Peter Gauweiler, have all filed a number of injunctions, asking the court to decide whether the two instruments are compatible with the German constitution.

Euro-scepticism appears to be on the rise in Germany, Europe's top economy and its effective paymaster, the YouGov poll suggested.

Some 53 percent of Germans are opposed to handing over more powers to the EU and as many as 42 percent said they would welcome a Greek exit from the single currency, while only 30 percent were against.

At the same time, 56 percent of those surveyed said they were concerned about a break-up of the euro area.

The online survey quizzed 1,004 people aged 18 or over between September 3 and 5, 2012.